Parent Trap Discontinued
by 14karatgold
Summary: “It's only a matter of time before Aly realizes the secret her mother has kept from their entire family. The secret that Thom was not Alanna’s first born child. We were.” Discontinued. New version titled "Parent Trap".
1. Prologue

Parent Trap

Summary- Kalita was abandoned soon after birth & left with the Baron of Trebond. Her guardians elude questions of her parents & she has never traveled to Corus. That is, until someone whispers that despite her black hair, she is the daughter of the Lioness. R&R

Disclaimer- Kalita is mine, as is Keyn, neither of them exist in Tamora Pierce's work, but everyone and everything else does. This is for entertainment _only_. No copyright infringements are intended. As usual.

Rated T for safety and future events- Drama/Romance- slightly humorous in places.

Focuses on Kalita, but there is some AJ in there, and slight AG

Suggestions are welcome, and if you feel you absolutely must flame, then obviously I can't stop you.

Prologue

Xxx

"Rispah please!" Kalita begged.

"I don't understand why you want to go so badly!" the Baroness of Trebond sighed, already tired of this argument.

"All my friends are going. I don't want to just sit here and rot while they go off and start _enjoying their lives!_" the short girl retorted hotly at her foster mother, dark violet-blue eyes flashing dangerously.

"You're mother hated the place!" Rispah said, not realizing that Kalita's eyes had just gone round, nor that she had just let slip something important. "She had to convince her brother to go along with one of her crazy ideas so she _didn't _have to go there!"

"My mother?" the black haired girl asked slowly. "Nice time to mention her, Rispah. Please go on." The buxom redhead clamped her lips tight shut and was saved from answering by her husband.

"Kali, ye know we're having company tonight. Please just go and get dressed and stop bothering yer mother," Coram sighed wearily to his charge.

"Ah!" Kali snapped. "But I thought she just said that—!"

"Enough Kalita!" Rispah yelled hoarsely. "Listen to your father, or whatever you want to call him and just do as you're told!"

Kali, slightly spoiled and headstrong as she was, stuck her nose up in the air, turned on her heel and stomped through the door, slamming it as she marched out. Rispah chose this time to sit on the bed she had just made up, and rubbed her temples.

"We should've known she'd be stubborn," she whispered, trying to smooth out the crow's feet that Kalita had caused to form around her eyes.

"Ah, but the spoiled part I think was entirely our fault," Coram answered quietly with a smile.

"And now she wants to go to the Convent. If we let her do that, she'll eventually get into Corus. She's too old now, anyway."

"Ah, but like ye said, she's stubborn. She's from a long line of fighters, that girl. Even if she went now, at sixteen, she'd be ready for next year's Midwinter Ball by next summer," Coram pointed out. "Not that we should let her go anyway. Alanna said that by no means should she go the Corus."

"Well, let's see what she says when we talk to her tonight," Rispah conceded, completely worn out by the daughter of the two most stubborn people in the country.

Xxx

Ah well, it has to start somewhere doesn't it? Not the greatest prologue I've ever written, but if I get even 1 review I'll be happy. Thanks to those who read it, and twice as many to those whose cursors are hovering over that lovely blue button in the lower left hand corner of the screen.

Cheers!

kt.


	2. Chapter 1: Silent Exchange

Disclaimer- as I said in the prologue, I don't own anything at all, except the characters that are obviously OC.

Chapter One- Silent Exchange

"Kali, go get dressed," Kalita rudely mimicked Coram as she stormed to her room. "Kali stop bothering your mother. Yeah, well she's not my mother is she!"

It was bad enough that all of her friends had left for the Convent five years ago and she rarely saw them, but now her parents (who weren't really her parents) wouldn't let her go either!

_Well_, her reasonable side poked in, _you are a bit old now_.

_Yeah, but I've been begging them since Joanna and Alice left, and now that their sisters have just gone too, I feel like an idiot!_

_You could always just sneak off without telling them_, a third side of Kalita's internal argument pointed out.

_No, that would just get me into an even deeper mess once I got caught. Besides, I would need help to get there. I don't know the land outside Trebond, Hiland, and Cherry Grove!_

Kalita had been dressing all through this little spat with herself and paused to stare at the mirror as the sound of hooves beating on the gravel drive approached. She unceremoniously dropped the necklace that she was about to wear and dashed to the window, desperate to see whom it was. Coram and Rispah refused to say who was coming to visit, and no amount of bribing would get anyone on the staff to spill either, so she just stared, using her sharp eyes to better see the details.

A woman in leather riding a golden horse was in the lead, closely followed by two other horses, a gray one, and two younger black ones. The gray one carried a boy, not much younger than Kalita, while the two black ones each carried a child. All of them had red hair.

She narrowed her eyes, concentrating on where she may have met these people before, but came up empty. Instead of hurting her brain more, she watched as the group was allowed through the gate and stared out the window aimlessly until a knock at her door jerked her out of her reverie.

"My lady, the Baron and Baroness would like you to meet someone," Kali's maid Belle informed her, bowing as she opened the door.

"Thank you Belle," Kali responded indifferently, just before the servant shut the door a little too loudly. Kali normally very good to her servants, but with the way she pulled off having mood swings, it drove most of them over the edge. Her 'parents' could only hope that she would eventually grow out of it. So far, however, she hadn't.

She returned to her vanity table to comb her wavy ebony locks and slip on the necklace she had dropped earlier. She briefly stroked the rampant cat that was carved into the outside of the gold locket before looking inside to find the Gift-made picture of her as a baby on one side, and her full name, Kalita Joalan of Trebond, etched carefully onto the other. She smiled sadly as she clicked the locket shut and opened the door of her room to meet her guardians and their guests downstairs.

Xxx

She descended the stairs gracefully, her long black hair pulled into a braid that was draped over her right shoulder, the end of which brushed the modest neckline of her red gown.

As she entered the dining room, she nodded to the two boys sitting somewhat patiently at one end of the table. One seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen (Kali's own age) and the other looked about thirteen.

She also noticed that (besides Rispah, this other woman, and herself) there was another girl, also around thirteen, and wearing the barest traces of a scowl on her face. Kalita gave her a questioning look. In turn, the young strawberry-blonde girl gestured to the pale green dress she was wearing with a silk-gloved hand. Kalita smiled apologetically while the mystery girl giggled slightly, her sullen mood vanquished.

After this exchange had been made, Kali gave her foster parents a polite curtsy, and then turned to their guest. Obviously the children here were her children. For some reason, the woman looked nervous, and fidgeted slightly with her shirt. Her eyes kept flickering between Kali's neckline and her eyes.

Kalita was rather disturbed by this. What was a woman with three kids (and very likely a husband) doing staring at her neckline? She very nearly covered herself with her hands, but her will to be polite stuck it through.

"Kali, this is Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau," Rispah introduced. "Alanna, this is Kalita."

"I know," the woman muttered vaguely, eyes now coming to rest on Kali's for which she was very grateful.

"Wait," the girl said. "_You're _the Lioness? _The _Sir Alanna?" Kalita's eyebrows rose in surprise before she realized that she should be curtsying. Her mouth sagged open dumbly.

The boys in the back snickered slightly. Apparently the got no end of amusement when their mother went to social functions. Their little sister smacked them both, which shut them up. Kali didn't notice this though. She was too busy goggling at this 'larger-than-life' celebrity who was in fact considerably smaller than any of the stories about her made her seem.

"Don't say it," Alanna said rather wearily, holding up a slender, yet calloused hand. "Please don't say you were expecting someone taller." Kali herself was rather short, not much taller than the Lioness, but was taken aback by the comment nonetheless. She looked at her parents as if begging this to be some sort of April Fools joke, but they just smiled and suggested that they should sit down.

Still struck dumb, Kalita chose a seat between the small green girl and Rispah, leaving Coram and Alanna at the heads of the table. The two seemed to be staring each other down, as if having a private conversation. Or argument. Judging by the expressions on their faces, Kali concluded that it must have been an argument. Who would've thought that her guardian knew the famed Lioness well enough to argue with her and not even have to say anything? Neither Coram nor Rispah had ever mentioned to Kali that they knew her, or anyone even remotely related to her. The pair told stories of the Great Lioness to her, but then again all parents did that these days. They never mentioned that they knew her well enough to just invite her for dinner.

"That's the usual response," the little girl in green said, occasionally tugging irritably at her dress. "I'm Alianne, by the way. Call me Aly though. Alianne's too long."

"Nice to meet you. I'm—"

"Kalita. I know." The girl smiled, her mischievous little hazel eyes twinkling, as if she knew something Kali didn't.

"So, sorry, what's the usual response?"

"In almost every function we attend, someone is always gawking at the famous Champion, almost as if afraid to be in the same room as her. The conservatives in Corus glare at her mostly, but never get close enough, as though concerned that she'll cut off their heads!"

"Oh, no. I wasn't thinking about it that way, I was just wondering how my parents knew her and didn't tell me so," Kali admitted to the other girl, vaguely aware that her brothers were listening in.

"Yes, that's kind of surprising to me too. We've known Coram and Rispah since we were little. They've only mentioned you a few times, but it's good to finally meet you in person." Aly seemed almost too calm and collected for her age, much more so than Kalita would likely ever be.

Suddenly Coram sighed, "Oh alright, Alanna. But don't ye go expectin' me te let ye off this easily next time." (AN- yeah, I kinda forgot about his commoner accent in the prologue. Oops.)

"Thank you Coram," Alanna grumbled with a slight attitude. Kali was shocked. She thought heroes were supposed to be extra more polite than anyone else, must more so if they were knights. Clearly this woman was not any old knight. _Of course she's not, _Kalita reminded herself. _She's a woman _and _the King's Champion. She can't just be any old knight!_

"If not for me, than for Jon," she added, with slightly pleading eyes. All of the children were now staring at her. All four of them were confused. _Jon?_ Kali wondered, her face scrunched up in concentration. Thinking really wasn't much of her thing. _Oh! _King _Jon?_ Today just kept getting stranger.

Coram's face went dark at her last statement, and continued staring her down. Clearly the King had done something the Baron just couldn't quite forgive him for. Kali's curiosity was instantly piqued.

"Dinner is served," one of the younger butlers, Andrew, said. Kali almost yelled at him for interrupting, but by the time she thought of it, the spell had already been broken. Coram stared moodily at the food while Alanna continued tossing glances between the confused girl with black hair and Rispah.

"Oh well done, Drew," Kali hissed as the butler passed. He shot her a grin over his shoulder. Admitting defeat (for now), Kalita Joalan poked at her food, keeping her ears sharp for anything that would explain the conversation, but nothing more than innocent small-talk was uttered after that.

"So how's my dear cousin George?" Rispah asked her small redheaded friend.

_Oh thank Mithros!_ Kalita exclaimed in her mind. _She does have a husband!_

Xxx

Okay, nothing exciting happened in this chapter, I know, but I needed to set up some stuff. Hopefully it was a little funny at the very least. Thanks for sticking to it, and beware for (hopefully) better chapters in the future! None for a while though—busy summer.

Thanks again!

KT


	3. Chapter 2 Conflicting Messages

Chapter Two: Conflicting Messages

"Kali, can I see your necklace?" Aly asked later that evening. The adults had thought it best if the girls slept in the same room, and neither of them had protested.

"Sure, why?" wondered the nearly asleep young lady.

"I think I've seen it before," the girl admitted.

"Really?" Kalita asked, now wide-awake. Maybe this could be a clue towards her parents. "Where?"

"Well, maybe not the _exact _necklace, but we have a small picture of one that looks just like it in Mum's room. It's on the mantle piece over the fireplace," Aly explained. Kali gawked at her with much the same expression as she wore when she met the Lioness.

"How can you possibly know that much? You said you _thought _that you had seen it before. Now it sounds like you _definitely _have!" Kalita yelled, a little louder than she had originally intended. Aly winced slightly at the volume.

"Well, may I see it? That way I'll know for sure whether I have or have not," the little girl said smartly. Slightly perplexed, Kalita carefully unclasped the locket and handed it to her new friend.

Alianne's eyes burned into every detail of the cat on the front, then, with delicate fingertips, she pulled open the locket and seemed to memorize every detail of the name and the portrait inside. Kalita watched the younger girl with interest: she seemed so mature and intelligent for her age. "Well," she said suddenly, causing Kalita to jump, "it looks like the 'of Trebond' part your name was added sometime after the 'Kalita Joalan' bit, and by a different carver."

Now Kalita was suspicious. "How can you _possibly _know that?" she snatched her locket rather meanly back so she could see what Aly was talking about with her own eyes. Nothing looked remotely different. "It looks just fine to me!" the younger girl shrugged.

"I have the Sight. I can See things and details that other people overlook. I get it from my Da, but have it in the strength that my Ma has her Gift." She puffed her chest out proudly as Kali placed the locket carefully on her dresser.

"So, if you're right," she said slowly.

"I am," Aly said matter-of-factly.

"If you're right," Kali repeated, "then that means that my full name is Kalita Joalan. It means I'm a commoner!" the girl began to cry softly. "Me! A commoner! No wonder my parents didn't keep me!" she wailed. "Or wait," she added, all traces of weeping suddenly gone, "Maybe they were killed just after I was born, and Coram and Rispah found me." Aly opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off. "But no, then that would mean that they likely didn't know my parents, so how did Rispah know that my mother hated the Convent?" Aly opened her mouth again, but was (yet again) silenced. "And if my parents were common, how did they afford the gold to make the locket—"

"Kali!" Aly yelled, finally shutting up her roommate. Kali's mouth snapped shut. "For one, only a very powerful Gift could've made that picture, and you can't buy a Gift like that in the first place. Two, your foster-parents could've known your parents, and taken you in _because _they died—they could be your Godsparents for all you know! And three, can't we talk about this in the morning? I can't think or See very well when I'm tired."

Kali (for once) decided not to argue, and sighed instead. "Fine," she said. "But we _are _going to talk about this in the morning." But Alianne was already asleep. Kalita scoffed slightly as she lied down in bed. She then waved a dainty hand, causing a very dark blue, almost violet Gift to come forth and turn off the lights.

Xxx

Kalita turned over in her sleep only to feel a slight weight on her mouth. The fog of her dreams rolled away leaving her blinking and confused. The weight over her mouth increased as she stared wildly around her room.

There was a dark figure bending over her, his hand pressed to her lips, and another, smaller figure by the window.

She tried to yell stupidly, but the palm of her captor muffled any and all sound emitted from her mouth. She struggled against his weight pressing her to the bed, keeping her still. She bit his hand in defiance. It twitched, but didn't remove itself from it position.

"Look here," the dark figure said from above her in a deep voice. "I'm not going to hurt you, and by no means am I about to rape you. That would be gross and disturbing and I am not one for incest." He removed his hand slowly, trusting her to be curious enough to be quiet. Obviously he didn't know her that well.

The second Kalita began to screech, the mystery man clapped his hand back over the gaping hole that was her mouth. Kalita eyes searched for Aly on the floor, hoping for some reaction to her scream, but she was fast asleep. It was probably an enchanted sleep, judging by the fact that she was so still.

"Yes, she's asleep. She'll wake up as soon as we leave though," her captor explained. "Now can I trust you to not scream this time? Well, if you do, it's just a waste of your voice because no one will wake up, and you'll probably have some questions. I am going to remove my hand now, and please, Kali, don't screech like a banshee." He implored her. "It does nothing for your features."

That was enough to keep her quiet. Kalita probably wouldn't scream for the rest of her life if it meant that she'd get…ugh…_wrinkles._

Then again, he probably did know her.

The dark man kept his promise, and removed his hand. He held out the same hand to help her out of bed, which she ignored, so he just got out of the way. He hissed something to his friend by the window, which Kali didn't hear.

She looked down at herself and only two words came to mind: silk nightgown. "Um, excuse me, but can I change before we…. Well, I'm assuming that we're going somewhere?"

Her kidnapper turned around to look at her. "Yeah. Get into something good for riding in. and it won't be cold where we're going (after all, it is Midsummer), so don't bother with heavy stuff. Or dresses," he added as an afterthought. Kalita grimaced. She just didn't look right in a shirt and breeches. Every time she looked in the mirror while wearing men's clothing, she was fairly sure she understood why it was called _men's clothing._ It did nothing for her figure.

"Well, will you at least turn around while I change," she asked in an overly polite voice.

"Sure. You're not exactly my type," said the one man who had spoken. His friend by the window was strangely quiet.

Kalita was insulted by this comment. It wasn't as though she wanted to be attracted to people who were kidnapping her, but basically being told that she wasn't attractive to someone _else_ was very bad for her ego.

She changed quickly, not wanting to further hurt her own self-esteem by thinking too much, but she was quite certain that the shirt and breeches (the _men's clothing) _were doing it for her. Her frown deepened with every second she spent in those clothes.

"Why can't I wear proper riding gowns?" she whined, desperately trying to boost her confidence level.

"They're flashy and attract attention, and that is _not _something we want," the man explained. "Now will you hurry up? We haven't gotten all night, you know. We have to get to Corus by tomorrow night."

"Ooooh. We're going to Corus?" Kali wanted to know. Now she was interested. "Oh, now I _really _can't go like this!"

"Oh for—" the man exclaimed, and he grabbed her hand and they followed his friend out the window. Kalita screamed.

"Oh Merciful Mother! We're going to die!" she squealed, covering her eyes. When they didn't, she looked around and realized that they were hovering twenty feet above the ground. She looked up and found that her captor was both holding onto her and a rope he had conveniently tied to her windowsill. "Oh."

They landed smoothly on the thankfully hard ground, and the man swung her up onto a waiting horse before climbing on himself. His friend was on a separate beast, still being innocuously quiet. Oddly enough, so was his horse.

They rode away from Fief Trebond long before the sun had risen in the morning, but when it had, Alanna shrieked in dismay to find her eldest daughter gone.

Xxx

Haha. A little obvious there huh? Well, I thought it was funny, but then again, I'm the crazy author. Tell me what you crazy readers think!

kt

PS, in case you didn't notice, I changed the genre from Drama/Romance to Humor/Romance. It didn't seem terribly dramatic to me. Tell me if you think it's funny enough to deserve Humor now.


	4. Chapter 3: Circles

Chapter Three- Circles

"So, _Keyn,_" Kalita spat deliberately. It had been a while since she'd learned his name. Well, only about three hours, but it seemed like a dreadfully long time to her. She wasn't used to being bored for this long. Even the excitement of going to Corus was beginning to wear off.

"Yes?" he sighed in response. He had kept his back to her since the barest traces of dawn began to show themselves, so that all Kalita really knew about him was that he had a really deep voice (quite a swoon-worthy one too), coal black hair, and was growing more annoyed and agitated by the second, likely because of her.

"I wasn't aware that getting to Corus took this long," she complained lightly, trying to seem innocently polite and failing grotesquely.

"Yes, well, you see," he began sarcastically, "people _always _recount every detail of their several day trip en route to Corus. It's often the most exciting part."

There were several seconds of blissful silence, in which the surrounding birds (anticipating a disturbance) took silent flight.

"_Several days!" _she screeched. At this point, Keyn's companion, whose name (Kali had recently learned) was Chance, clapped his hands over his ears, moving in time with the less intelligent birds who hadn't understood why the others were scattering. Now they did.

"No, I'm sorry. It's just taking so long because we've been going in circles," Keyn added, continuing his streak of sarcasm because it made him feel better.

Kali, not picking up on the joke, said dumbly, "Actually, this tree does look familiar…" as she pointed to a nearby walnut tree. This made Keyn exhale as slowly as he could as to keep himself from laughing.

"And how would you know one tree from the next?" he asked.

"I wouldn't," she admitted lightly. "My motto is, 'If you've seen one tree, I'm pretty sure you've seen them all,' especially in this forest… I don't think I've ever seen so many trees in my life. Not that I mind though. Trees are pretty..."

"Great Merciful Mother, make her shut up for a few seconds!" Keyn hissed, while Chance (who still had his hands on the sides of his head) shot her a long reproachful look in response to her endless babbling. Kalita got a good look at him now and instantly did as instructed.

While Chance wasn't the single most handsome man Kali had ever seen (and she had seen quite a few, some quite closely), he had something that Kalita found intriguing, and yet, she didn't know quite what it was. Maybe it was his hair.

He was perfectly average—no well-defined jaw line or cheekbones—but his dark green eyes looked around suspiciously with obvious intelligence under low, serious eyebrows that matched his dark red—almost black—hair. His hair was so dark, that the only way you could tell that he had red hair was when the light hit it and it shined red instead of white.

When he finished glaring at her, he returned to facing forward so that Kali could see his abysmally straight hair pulled back into a low horsetail.

She envied him, if only for his hair. She could never get her hair that straight for very long, even with help from her Gift and Belle, but it looked like the straightness of his hair was natural. She sighed an unintentional sigh of longing but missed the boys giving each other disturbed looks.

"Soooooooo," she ventured after a few minutes of unbearable ('unbearable' meaning 'boring') silence, "do either one of you feel a sudden urge to tell me more about yourselves than just you're name? We might just have something in common."

"I already know how much we have in common," Keyn muttered before he could help himself.

"Well _obviously,_" Kalita shot back. "You knew where to find me, which means that you know quite a bit about me, which also means that you would know how much we have in common, and yet I know nothing about you. Care to give me _something?_"

"You know, you're smarter than you initially let on," Keyn commented.

"Yes… so I've been told. Multiple times," Kalita said rather flatly. "I don't understand it." That made Chance laugh, and Kali could tell that Keyn was smiling slightly as well. That at least made her feel a little better, and daring enough to say what she had intended, "And there's another thing that you know about me, but I still haven't the slightest idea as to how intelligent you think you are."

The pair had stopped laughing, and Kali instinctively cowered on her horse, thinking that she had said the wrong thing. She hadn't, but nevertheless, it wasn't exactly the smartest thing to say to your kidnappers, no matter how nice they seemed.

"We're orphans," Chance stated dully, and Kalita heard his voice for the first time. Perfectly average, not deep like Keyn's, nor girly. Just average. Kalita focused on him, as he took extra care not to look back at her. This made her inexplicably sad, but she continued to listen as he spoke on.

"We were abandoned with the Bazhir when we were born. My mother died giving birth to me, but our adoptive father, Sahid, wouldn't say what happened to Keyn's mother. He only said that 'she left him behind in shame of his birth,' but look at him…" it took him a minute to realize that Kalita had, as of yet, only seen the back of Keyn's head. "Keyn, how long can you hide your face from her? She's going to find out anyway—"

"Oooh. I like secrets!" Kali blurted excitedly, squealing the 'Oooh' at such a pitch that made the horses twitch, even though the present human ears couldn't actually hear the noise.

Keyn sighed, hanging his head slightly in resignation. "You may not like this one, Kali."

Xxx

Yeah, yeah, I know, it was short. And it sort of had a cliffie, but it should be rather obvious by now as to what the so-called 'secret' is.

Don't worry. I'll try to update sooner and have longer chapters than this one, but I really wanted to get one out there after being away for so long. I really appreciate and take to heart all of your reviews, and I wanted to post just for you, but I should be out with another chapter soon. No promises (my muse is sporadic), but I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going to take this, so the next chapter (whenever I write it) should be longer, and hopefully better than this one. I'll leave all opinions up to you.

kt

PS

Heh heh. I like Kali. She makes me laugh. She sort of sounds like me when I'm in hyper-mode. Heh heh.

Ok, well, I'm out!

Cheers ya'll.


	5. Chapter 4: Secrets

Chapter Four: Secrets

AN- sorry for the long wait. School, after-school practice, band… you know the drill. I sprained my ankle badly the other day, so I decided to sit down and write since I had nothing else to do (for once).

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

"Please promise you won't scream," Keyn said, voice carefully controlled as though he was frightened.

"What? Are you horribly disfigured or something?" Kalita blurted, sounding rather disappointed. "Merciful Mother would that be a letdown."

Chance laughed outright, but Keyn did not. "I think it's worse than that Kali," the black-haired boy said. "Let's stop here for the day. This could take a while to explain." Keyn leapt off his horse, and tied him to a tree. Chance copied his movements before attending to Kali, whose horse was tied to his own.

She allowed him to take her tied hands in order to help her down. The first two or so hours of their trip had been a single quote, constantly repeated like a broken record from Kalita's incessant mouth: "Why bother tying me up? I'm not going to walk through a forest all by myself, without a horse. Really. Trees may be pretty, but one might knock me out when I'm not looking!" Maybe she only said it once, but it seemed like a lot more to Keyn and Chance.

Speaking of Keyn, he had _still_ not turned around. "Hey!" Kali yelled in his direction as Chance untied her hands (likely remembering the earlier quote). "I'm not _that _ugly, you know! You can ask plenty of guys!" It was unlikely that Keyn really cared one way or the other, but her ego was being crushed. She had to toot her horn _some_how. "'Course, we'd actually have to _get _to Corus first…" she mumbled as an afterthought.

Keyn looked as though he was about to turn around, but Kalita chose that moment to decide that she was going to open her mouth again.

"Hey!" she shouted once more, "why aren't we traveling during the day? It's a _beautiful_ day to ride." She sighed girlishly, causing Chance to visibly roll his eyes, but ever-perceptive Kali must've missed it because she plowed on. "What a waste. Even more so because we're in a _forest. _All the pretty blue sky is blocked by the—"

"Kali, please," Keyn whined, "my brain has suffered enough for the past week. Please, just give me a _second's _peace."

"Do seconds have peace?" she asked, in what Chance considered 'a dumb way,' "because I'm pretty sure they're more busy than you." Chance changed his mind after this statement.

Silence followed. That is, until Kalita found it necessary to giggle nervously, and then suddenly flop down on the ground, oddly appreciative of her 'men's clothing.' One tends to reconsider 'flopping' in a dress.

Keyn decided to ignore her latest comment and simply say, "Kali, we can't travel during the day, just incase we run into someone."

The girl's brow furrowed. "We're in a rather abandoned forest, in case you didn't notice."

"Kali, if I'd noticed, it was because you can't seem to stop noticing."

"Nevermind that. What does it matter that anyone sees us?"

"Have you ever wondered why Coram and Rispah never let you out into public?" Keyn asked, still contemplating turning around. Kalita was beginning to think he was dramatic.

"They've let me out!" she exclaimed furiously. "I'm not some pampered little princess that refuses to get her hands dirty!" her dark eyes flashed. Keyn whispered a single word that Kali could not hear.

"You're telling me that you take care of your own horses?" Chance asked curiously, as though he had never heard of a noblewoman that did such a thing.

"Of course I stable my own horse, you dolt!" she spat, leaping to her feet. "The King's daughter may not be allowed to taint her perfect little fingers, but I was not allowed to _not_ to."

"I think you should know that even the Queen stables her own horses," Keyn said, "and a few more. The Queen's Riders wouldn't exist if it wasn't for her."

"Queen's Riders?" Kali wondered, no longer insulted.

"Mithros. They never did let you out did they?" Chance asked, flabbergasted. "How could you possibly stand being in that old fort day and night? And how could you _possibly_ not know about the Riders? Does no one tell you anything?"

"Apparently not…" Kali muttered.

"The Baron and Baroness probably didn't want to give their foster-daughter another reason to leave Trebond and go to Corus."

"I just don't understand!" Kali groaned in frustration, barely concealing her temper. "Why do they have such a problem with Corus? You know, the Queen's Riders sounds much more like something I would do than the Convent, and I don't even know what it is! But I guess it has to do with horses, so that's a plus."

"Oh, you wouldn't like it," Chance said quickly. "You have to wear men's clothing." He obviously expected her to explode with shock at this new information by the way his body tensed up after he said it.

The girl twitched uncomfortably at the thought, as though trying to shrug off her current apparel. "Every day?" she whined. "I'd do it if I could get into Corus. After all, isn't that why I'm wearing them now?" she sighed. "I just want to know why they downright refused to let me go…" in her annoyance, Kali closed her eyes and counted to ten. It normally didn't help, but she kept doing it anyway.

"Look, I know why."

Keyn's quiet whisper was barely heard, but when he said it, Kali stopped abruptly on the number seven to look at him.

And a pair of gray eyes was looking back.

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"Coram! Tell me she did not just run away!" Alanna screamed, eyes slammed shut, as though to a frigid wind.

"I could, but that would be lying, and I know how ye hate being lied to."

"…Let's not go into that."

"Well? What do ye want me te say? That she's hiding a broom cupboard?"

Alanna grimaced.

"No, and we are not going to go into that either."

"By the way, Rispah, did ye check the broom cupboards?" Coram said, turning to his wife. "The Alanna daughters have a tendency to hide there." Rispah stared, cocking her eyebrow at Alanna, who groaned.

"Coram!" Alanna cried. "Please! Just help me here!"

"Alanna, she's not in the castle. Ye can't scry for her, because of the charm. Remember? Ye did it so Jon—if he ever found out about her—couldn't find her. I told ye then that it was a bad idea. 'If she's anything like ye,' I said, 'ye'll need to scry for her at some point.' But did ye ever listen to me?"

"Not really," Alanna admitted, as she passed a large painting of her parents. First, she looked up at her mother. The woman smiled blankly at the opposite wall, hands gently placed on her husband's shoulders as he sat in his chair. Her wide violet eyes were so happy and so full of hope that Alanna felt her throat tauten, before looking to her father and fighting back the tears.

They looked so happy, and Alan of Trebond was happier in that depiction than Alanna had ever seen him in life.

She loved her parents. Her mother, she had never met, and Alan had taken little interest in his children, but that didn't change the love she had for them. Did her children love her like that? She knew that three of them did.

But what about the other two?

Alanna sighed at the smile on her father's face. That smile actually reached his eyes, brightening them from the flat gray that Alanna had always seen, to a shining silver hue that Alanna had only seen once before.

In the eyes of a baby boy that she left with Kara and Kourrem—the shamans of her Bazhir tribe.

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Ok, that was a slightly more serious chapter. Well, Kali, not so much, but nevermind. Informative? I hope so. Tell me what you think!!

KT


	6. Chapter 5: Deduction

Chapter Five: Deduction

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At first, Kali was slightly perplexed ("Why do you look like a guy version of me?"), but then she slowly caught on after he said, "We probably looked even more alike when we were younger." It was then that her mouth formed a silent 'O' shape, and she approached him with slight caution.

With some hope, Keyn watched her as she studied him, before jumping at her next, unexpected exclamation: "Great Merciful Mother! I've been cloned, and someone screwed up the process and I ended up like a guy! Oh Keyn. I'm so sorry! I pity you that you couldn't end up like me!" she paused, "But then again, I'd have competition… In that case, woohoo! I'm still unmatched in my unbelievable hotness!" she performed a sort of victory dance with as much vigor as someone who had actually achieved something.

Keyn just stood there, astonished, as his friend covered his face in his hands and whispered, "Are you sure you two are related?"

"I'm not really sure at the moment," Keyn whimpered back, still transfixed by the oddity that was his sister.

"Mithros. We must've had some good-looking parents," she whistled as she cast a learned eye over his features. "You're sure your foster-father never mentioned her? Shame. We could be royal with beauty like this!" she twirled around, flailing her arms wildly, as if to enhance her point.

"Actually, Kali, I know who our mother is, and I also have a decent idea who our father is too," Keyn said, reaching out and stopping her next revolution. "Can I see your locket?"

"Of course," she answered, fingers probing her neck for a chain. Keyn watched as her brow furrowed, and the same hand dove into the pockets of her breeches.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't have it," she admitted, looking up at him with frightened eyes. "I always have it with me. I must've left it on the nightstand after Aly looked at it!"

"What?" he exclaimed. "Alianne of Pirate's Swoop? _That_ Aly?"

"Yes, do you know her?" Kali asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, and she's the last person who should have looked at that locket. Great Merciful Mother. If she recognizes it…"

"If she recognizes it, what?" Kali demanded.

"If she recognizes it, she'll see its significance, and she'll most definitely come to the correct conclusions," Chance said.

"Well, she's already recognized it, but she came to no conclusions, except that the inscription stating my name has two parts: 'Kalita Joalan' and 'of Trebond'."

The boys exchanged significant and frightened glances.

"Then it's only a matter of time," Chance whispered, speaking directly to Keyn.

"Only a matter of time for what?" Kali asked, approaching tentatively, glances darting between the two.

"Only a matter of time before she realizes the secret her mother has kept from their entire family. The secret that Thom was not Alanna's first born child. You are," Keyn said.

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When Alianne Cooper awoke the morning after the dinner party, her head didn't feel quite right. She took a quick inventory of herself and came to the conclusion that nothing odd had happened to her, except that she had been placed under a spell the night before to make her sleep through something. She checked herself carefully, and realized that she had not been the quarry of whoever had cast the spell, which left…

She sat up quickly, and looked over to Kalita's bed. It was empty. She'd known it would be, but that didn't change the shock she felt after confirming her suspicions. She looked over the room, looking for imperfections. She strode over to the bed, and saw only disturbed sheets and crumpled pillows. No sign of extreme struggle.

She then turned her attention to the wardrobe. One drawer was ajar, revealing numerous sets of plain shirts and breeches, which looked like they were rarely used. The top set had been displaced, as though the set above it had been removed, and drug out the one below it partially. It had been removed in great haste. Aly set her Sight upon the wardrobe. It illuminated many fingerprints, but all were made by feminine fingers, the most recent had left minute scratches from carefully manicured fingernails. They were undoubtedly Kalita's fingerprints.

But why would she leave in the middle of the night?

Aly's careful examination of the scene left her with two choices:

Someone had spelled Aly, in order to kidnap Kali and Kali hadn't resisted, or Kali had spelled her, left of her own accord. One simple test was needed. Aly set her Sight upon herself, looking for remnants of the Gift that had been used to put her into an enchanted sleep. She remembered Seeing Kali's Gift—a dark violet-blue—as soon as she had met the older girl. She compared that Gift to the one that she could still feel inside herself. The traces of that Gift were small, but recognizable. It too was violet-blue, but subtly different. Whoever spelled her was very closely related to Kalita.

Very closely related.

Kali had not left of her own accord, and so had been kidnapped by a father, or brother, most likely. The two Gifts had been differentiated by gender only. It was very likely that Kali had a twin she did not know about, and that twin had kidnapped her, for a reason that Aly, for once, could not understand.

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Yay! Another chapter down! I hope to have more soon.

If you got a little confused, please, PM (or review, whichever) your questions to me, and I will respond with an explanation. I had hoped to be clear in what I was saying but I found it slightly difficult. I have weird thought processes. So, please, feel free to ask questions. I won't be offended.

KT


	7. Chapter 6: The Sins of the Mother

Chapter Six: The Sins of the Mother

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For the remainder of their several day trip, Kali was unusually quiet. Keyn sent her many covert looks with his silver eyes, but she noticed none of them. As they rode onwards, she only continued to touch her bare collarbone nervously, the ghostly light of the moon shining off her pale skin, and he knew that she was thinking of Aly. Truth be told, the young Cooper girl had been occupying his thoughts too, which only drove him to set up a faster pace, and for once, Kali did not complain. This alone unnerved her twin, but he never spoke of it. In fact, there was little speech that went on at all.

By the time they were with in a few hours of Corus, it was approaching midnight of their fourth night riding. They were very close to a few outlying villages, and out from under the protection of the forest canopy. "Put your hoods up," Keyn whispered. The boys had packed a few traveling cloaks for some of the cooler nights, and this night was one of them.

"It's not like they're going to see our faces anyway, Keyn," Kali admonished with irritation. "It _is _nighttime."

"The moon knows how to give things away, Kali. Just trust me." He paused. "And _please _tell me this complaint is not due to your worry for your hair?"

"Oh, no. My concern for my hair went down the drain with the water from my last bath," she said sardonically, clearly annoyed, "which was _four days ago._" Keyn actually breathed a sigh of relief: at least she was acting normally now, if a little crankier than before.

"Never fear, Kalita, you will be clean by midday, I assure you."

Kali grumbled, "I better be, or you're going _down. _In the mud, down. See if _you_ like it." Chance laughed.

"For Mithros's sake, Kali! That was days ago! You can't get over it?" Keyn cried. Chance was still laughing. Clearly it had been an amusing event.

"No. I _still _haven't gotten a decent bath. And for your information, my Week of Hell is approaching. This little mood of mine right now is just a tiny sample of just how touchy I am going to get."

Chance wisely chose this time to stop laughing.

Keyn was silent also, but instead of being afraid, he was simply disturbed. "I really didn't need to know that, Kali," he groaned.

"Oh, you trust _me, _brother. By the time our little 'adventure' is through, you will know _all _about it. The raging hormones, the debilitating cramps, the—"

"Okay, _okay!_" Keyn yelped, releasing the reins of his steed to clamp his hands over his ears. Chance was laughing again, but he figured Kali wouldn't mind since he wasn't laughing at her any longer. He was wrong about this of course.

"And you! Shut it! This is no laughing matter!" she snapped staring him down in the darkness. Chance snapped his mouth shut again in response. Just because he couldn't see her face, didn't mean he needed to in order to get the message. "Boys have it so easy! They don't have to deal with monthly cycles, pregnancy, looking perfect! They get to do all the fun things!"

"But we do have to deal with you," Keyn whispered to himself. Unfortunately for him, Kali's hearing was also vastly improved during this time of the month.

"Oh hoho ho ho," Kali growled. "Just wait until you meet a girl, Keyn. I'll make sure she makes your life hell."

"Can we stop having this charming little brother-sister chat now?" Chance asked. "We're getting close to that village, and you guys are being kind of loud. I'm surprised they aren't all awake by now." The village of which he spoke was still a good ten minutes away.

But nevertheless, the twins ceased their idle banter and just grumbled angrily under their breaths. Well, Kali grumbled angrily under her breath. Keyn was done thinking about it, for which he was very grateful.

Kali managed to calm down within the next thirty seconds, allowing herself to be consumed by the silence. Normally, silence unnerved her, but not this night.

That's how she knew something was wrong.

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Turning away from her brothers as she approached her horse, Alianne emptied the contents of her tightly closed fist into one of the pockets in her riding jacket.

Today was the day that the four Coopers were due to return to Pirate's Swoop, but for some odd reason, only three of them were preparing to leave Trebond. Alanna was not going to join her children on the ride back to their home. Aly stored this information carefully in her mind, somewhere easily accessible, for one of her finely tuned instincts told her that this was important.

"Do you have the message for Da?" Alan asked of his older brother.

"Of course I have it, dolt. I don't lose things like you do," Thom snapped.

Aly heard this only as background chatter, white noise to the connections she was trying to form in her mind. She found it very irritating, but fought to tune it out. She didn't want to snap at them, for doing so would cause them to ask questions Aly wasn't quite ready to give the answers to.

"Why is Ma is staying with Uncle Coram and Aunt Rispah?" Alan inquired in his pre-pubescent voice (which was part of why Aly found the conversation so irritating).

"Because their daughter was either kidnapped or ran away, and they want Ma to scry for her. Now, will you please shut up for a while? It's a long way home, and I'd rather not hear you the whole way." Thom was trying to be patient, but he couldn't make Alan quiet quite the way Aly could, so he turned to her and whispered, "Aly, give him the Glare," but she didn't hear him.

"Alright. Let's go home, boys," she said disappointedly. There wasn't quite enough information to allow her to make her next important decision. She saddled her horse, but before she climbed onto him, she felt for the fine, gold locket that was tucked safely away in her left jacket pocket. "Let's go home…"

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"How could this happen?" Alanna moaned as she sat alone by the empty hearth. She vaguely heard her children riding away from Trebond, but she was not thinking of them. Instead, she thought of another child.

As she remembered her short encounter with her eldest daughter, she pictured the girl's face as clearly as if Kali was standing before her with that proud look she had inherited from her father. There was so much of Jon in her that it frightened Alanna just to think of her.

As a renowned knight, Alanna boded well under questioning, but she had barely been able to look at George for months after bearing Kalita and Keyn. She had told him that Jon had sent her to the mountains around Sarain in order to gather intelligence.

She had gone to the Saren mountains, but Jon had not sent her there. Jon wouldn't have had the faintest clue she was even leaving, had she not said to him, "Jon, I'm going into the mountains. I won't tell you where, but I need my own post-honeymoon honeymoon. Tell George that you sent me on a mission, if he asks."

"Are you two having problems?" Only a month after their little 'accident' where Alanna's charm broke, and he hadn't suspected a thing. In fact, it looked as though he had forgotten, or at least tried to forget.

"We could, if I don't take this trip, Jon." She had sighed. "It's nothing. You don't need to know. I'll just be out-of-commission for a while. Don't go getting Tortall into dire trouble now, at least not for the next year or so." She had smiled.

"A year?" he had asked. Suddenly, Alanna could see that he had not forgotten at all. She had wanted to cry, confess to him that she was bearing his child in her womb… but she could not. A soldier's will wins over all else in times of need. She would get through this, but she needed to leave his presence quickly.

"There abouts, Jon. I'll be fine."

"Your real honeymoon was shorter," he'd said incredulously, a trace of a smile gracing his perfect mouth. "George must be driving you crazy." He had snickered.

"Yeah, well, that was a formality, a thing of tradition. This might actually be necessary."

She had hugged him briefly, but turned and left as soon as it was over so he would not see the glassy, broken look in her eyes that was soon going to give way to tears.

Even now, seventeen years later, Alanna remembered every detail of that encounter, and knew that she would not forget it for some time. There had been Jon's welcoming expression, but there was also the warmth in her stomach that felt like an acid. The greater acid was the knowledge that she was not bearing George's child, and it had eaten away at her, even as her belly swelled with new life.

With just over a month left in her pregnancy, Alanna had trekked back down to the desert in time to give one of her children to her Bazhir tribe, taken the other to Coram and Rispah, and then gone home, where a worried George awaited her arrival. The birth pushed into her a hard onset of postpartum depression, worse than what she had felt before. As her children left the warmth of her womb, the acid had not.

George had been sweet, cared for her every need and whim personally, but he could not understand why his Alanna was so distant and sad. He had tried not to push himself at her too fast, no matter how happy he was that she was home, and no matter how much he had wanted to show it.

After a long, agonizing month of this, he hadn't been able to stand not kissing her anymore. In no state to even try to resist, Alanna had allowed him to take her then and there. Thus, Thom was born, and everything returned to normal.

She loved her children, but the familiar feeling of that long-gone depression resurfaced as Kali disappeared, and currently, she was the only one who mattered. She knew that this trip would hurt, but she didn't know it would leave her with so many loose ends.

"Alanna, lass, ye could just _tell _Jon. Just in case they get anywhere near the capitol," whispered Coram as he pushed open the door to Alanna's cold hideaway.

"No. The truth would eat at him, in just the way it's been eating away at me," she groaned dryly, pushing herself out of the armchair that had been her refuge for the innumerable hours past.

"Have ye at least _tried _to scry for her?"

"You know as well as I do, the charms I put on that locket. It's not in her room—I already checked. There's no doubt she's got it on her, so scrying won't work," Alanna said, calmly cracking her fingers.

"Sometimes I don't understand ye lass. How can ye be so calm? I'm barely keepin' a lid on it, and Rispah's getting close to hysterics," Coram wondered.

"I learned something from the Yamani," was her simple reply.

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Yes, it has truly happened—I actually updated. Wow. Well, you know the drill. Tell me what you thought. I'll admit—I've been out of the loop for a while… I may have gotten rusty.

Okay! That's all. It was one of my longer chapters. I hope it makes up for the long… lull.

KT


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